Building a Safe Environment

One of the biggest goals that you should have for your eGroup is to build trust within the group.  When people trust the other group members and trust your leadership, they are so much more likely to engage and share the details of their life.  When people trust the confidentiality in the context of the eGroup lives will be impacted and their life change stories will be written!

So, trust is perhaps the most important key to really making your eGroup the place where genuine community can be formed.  And, it is your job to ensure that group members get to a place of knowing they can be real and knowing that they will not be judged, gossiped about, or be the topic of conversation around the coffee pot.

Here are some practical steps to continue to build trust among the eGroup members:

• You have to talk about it: Either by talking about it directly, creating a "group covenant", or simply by alluding to it in conversation, your eGroup members must be reminded constantly of the confidence that they have in each other.  Whenever you add a new eGroup member or when some time passes, bring back up the topic of trust and confidence.  Do not be afraid to bring it up when you know the discussion is about to get deep and will drive into a sensitive topic.  When you mention it, it carries weight with your members, so do not be afraid to discuss the topic of trust and confidence.  Do not assume that your members understand the confidentiality of the eGroup.
• You go first: When the eGroup Leader shares intricate details of his/her life, it can go a long way towards building trust and accountability.  When your people see that you are comfortable sharing private details with the eGroup, they are more likely to follow suit.  So, since you will be driving the conversation, be prepared to share details of your life.  Your example will go a long way.
• Give Biblical feedback in the moment, and loving feedback afterwards: When someone is sharing, you must understand that they are allowing the eGroup into private details of their life.  In the moment, you must show compassion and care; in addition, you must give Biblical feedback and direction.  The compassion will show how much you care, and the Biblical direction will show how much you want them to grow and mature.  Both are important.
• Listen first, respond later: You need to be very sensitive to the person and to the eGroup when someone is sharing.  You want to avoid cutting the person off in the middle of their thought, but you also want to ensure you are allowing the flow of the meeting to continue.  It is a skill to learn how to carefully manage the flow of someone's sharing with flow of the discussion.  You?ll learn when to let them continue and when to cut them off.

These are just a couple of suggestions.  Experience is the best teacher in the realms of building confidence and trust within the eGroup.  Your members will look to you to lead the way, so know your plan and know how you are going to build trust within the eGroup.

• How would you define a "safe environment" for the eGroup?  Your understanding of a "safe environment" will go a long way towards it being a point of emphasis in your leadership; how can you grow in your understanding of a "safe environment"?
• What is the "safest environment" that you have ever experienced?  What made it "safe" in your mind?  How can you take some of those characteristics to set the right tone for your eGroup?